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When defending RBC Heritage champion Brandt Snedeker unleashes his first drive of the tournament’s opening round Thursday, one of about 1,000 local volunteers will use a laser to pinpoint the ball’s position.

The information will be relayed to a communications truck and, within seconds, appear on television screens around the world.

That volunteer’s job is still a relatively new one for the RBC Heritage, the annual PGA Tour stop at Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island. Changes in technology have led the tour to request a larger number of volunteers in recent years.

“The tour is adding more responsibilities every year,” Heritage volunteer coordinator Ray Angell said. “Five or six years ago, we didn’t have the lasers. We’ve had to add more volunteers as the tour has added responsibilities.”

With the number of available volunteers on Hilton Head dwindling, Angell began venturing to Sun City two years ago to recruit extra help. It’s paid off, as about 200 of this week’s volunteers will hail from the community.

The move created the latest link between the Heritage, Sun City and Bluffton.

Economic impact

Though the tournament takes place on the other side of Mackay and Skull creeks, at Hilton Head’s Sea Pines Resort, it provides an annual economic boon to Bluffton and the rest of Beaufort County.

Data specific to Bluffton is hard to come by, as Town Manager Anthony Barrett pointed out last week.

“While there have been studies about the impact on the area, there is not a specific dollar amount which can easily be pinpointed directly to the town of Bluffton,” Barrett wrote in an email.

But Barrett acknowledged the Heritage’s positive impact on the town, and noted that Bluffton business owners have said they see an uptick in the number of visitors when the tournament rolls around.

A 2010 study indicates that the Heritage boosts the whole Beaufort County economy each spring. The Heritage Classic Foundation commissioned the study by Clemson University and the University of South Carolina Beaufort, which measured the tournament’s impact on the local economy.

In 2010, 25,980 spectators from outside Beaufort County attended the Heritage. They spent about $65.5 million that went to county businesses, according to the study.

Securing sponsors

Much of that revenue could have been lost, had the tournament not been able to secure sponsors Royal Bank of Canada and Boeing in June.

Last year’s Heritage was held without a title sponsor after Verizon declined to renew its contract in 2010. RBC and Boeing swooped in, possibly saving the event, with five-year deals that run through 2016.

The Clemson and USCB study estimated a loss of $50-58 million to Beaufort County if the Heritage is ever discontinued. Visitor spending created about $26 million in local government revenues from 2001-2010, according to the study.

“It would have been very, very hard for our whole state if we would have lost that tournament,” Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka said. “You can’t put a price tag on the exposure we get all over the nation on television for those seven days — those aerial shots of the water and the lighthouse.”

You can put a price tag on the Heritage’s charitable contributions, however: More than $22 million since 1987, according to the foundation. It donated $1.25 million in scholarships and nonprofit funding in 2011.

Just last month, Bluffton High’s Jacob George and Jason Guo were among 15 Beaufort County seniors who received college scholarships of $18,000 or more at the Heritage Scholars luncheon.

“One of the biggest things is what they do after the Heritage, with the scholarships and the nonprofits,” Sulka said. “There are so many beneficiaries of the Heritage. It might not be in our town, but we all benefit greatly from it.”

Bobcats help out

Some of George and Guo’s fellow Bluffton High students will be on hand at Harbour Town this week, helping to keep the course clean.

Members of the Bluffton High football team will pick up litter and sort recyclables throughout the week as they raise money to buy new uniforms.

Bluffton head coach Ken Cribb said that he and assistants John Houpt and Tom Thompson will bring more than 25 to 30 players per day to work.

The students also get the chance to see a field of more than 100 professional athletes compete in a high-level tournament.

“Our kids do a great job with it. All the vendors recognize them, give them pats on the back and thank them,” Cribb said. “They get to stop and watch the golfers as they play through, then they get back to work.

“They get to see something they wouldn’t normally get to see. It’s an exciting time for them.”

Angell, the volunteer coordinator, said the Sun City volunteers are just as excited to work at the Heritage. Most of them have backgrounds in golf, which makes them ideal volunteers who jump at the chance to be involved with a PGA event, he said.

It’s all part of an ongoing relationship between the Heritage and Bluffton, which is only strengthening as the tournament enters its 44th year.

“There’s a wealth of good people out there,” Angell said. “Once we made contact with them, they came forward and a lot of them started recruiting other people for us. Those people have been totally amazing.”

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